Oscilloscope spins ‘Shut Up’

LCD Soundsystem docu to unspool in summer

Oscilloscope Laboratories has picked up North American rights to Sundance docu “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” which chronicles the final 48 hours of electronic dance music giant LCD Soundsystem. Distrib is eyeing special one-night-only release sometime this summer.

Pic debuted in the midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival in January. It features 11 songs from the group’s farewell gig at Madison Square Garden last spring, though co-directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace spend much of the film pondering the meaning of frontman James Murphy’s decision to pull the plug on LCD and stage the band’s “funeral.”

“Perhaps having grown up in a band for most of my life — a band that formed when I was 16 years old — and having released our first record when I was still in high school, this film addresses so many questions,” said Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy and Oscilloscope topper. “For instance, it can be pretty clear when a band starts but perhaps less so when it ends, or how it should end. In that sense, it’s brilliant of James to end it in such a definitive way.”

Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski of Pulse Films produced with Murphy. Deal was negotiated by David Fenkel of Oscilloscope and Mark Anker at WME Global.

Oscilloscope picked up U.S. rights to Sundance doc “Chasing Ice” last month, as Variety first reported March 9.